The present invention relates generally to Advanced Intelligent Networks and more particularly to implementing feature interactions between an AIN-based service and a switch-based forwarding service.
Many new Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) services are providing call forwarding for customers who also have voicemail services on their line. A typical scenario might be one in which a terminating AIN service has been assigned to a subscriber's line and the AIN service wants to allow the call to proceed to the customer's line. However, the customer also has a voicemail feature which requires the use of a switch-based call forwarding service. The switch will then forward the call via a switch-based call forwarding service to the customer's voicemail server. However, the functionality of the AIN service may need to preclude the switch from forwarding the call at particular times of the day or based on other screening criteria.
For example, with multi-line extension service, calls to a subscriber's telephone number are forwarded to a user's wireless telephone number as well as the user's wired subscriber line. In that case, both lines ring simultaneously and the call can be answered from either line. However, if the wired subscriber line has a switch-based call-forward to voicemail, the call may be forwarded to voicemail before the user can answer the call on the wireless line.
Currently, a way to solve the problem is to remove the voicemail forwarding from the customer's line and implement the call forwarding to voicemail as part of the AIN service. The AIN service can then determine whether the call should go to voicemail, or directly to the customer's line or perhaps should not proceed at all. However, this present solution is complex and requires the removal of the standard switch-based call forwarding service.